OTRC: Meredith Vieira adjusting to home life following 'Today' show exit

Meredith Vieira has started adjusting to her new life since leaving her fast-paced gig at the "Today" show in June and admitted that she and her husband are still finding their "rhythm," since she's become a homebody.

Vieira was a co-anchor on the top-rated morning show for the past five years and left to spend time with her children, Ben, 22, who recently graduated from Stanford, Gabe, 19, and Lily, 18 and her husband Richard Cohen, who has multiple sclerosis. She was also tired of waking up at 2:30 a.m. to go to work, which wasn't easy on any of her relationships.

"Sleep deprivation is a bad thing," Vieira said. "When you're tired all the time, you just don't feel well. It's easy to gain weight; it's easy to get depressed. And there's anxiety...all of those things really started to weigh on me, and I thought, 'Is it worth risking my health?'"

Vieira left the "Today" show before her contract ended in order to spend July with her family in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

"If I've learned anything from having chronic illness in our family, it's that time is the one thing you can't get back," Vieira said. "A part of me feels,' Just don't do anything. Take a year, do nothing.' I'm also getting advice from a lot of different quarters, people whom I respect, who say, "Well, strike while the iron is hot because the thing about television is that in six months, you're history!"

Though she is happy to be with her family, the former host admitted that she is still adjusting to the change and felt a bit lost after leaving the show.

"Just an hour after I left the show, I went, Wow. I won't have a place to go," Vieira remembered. "I won't have an audience, and I won't have the perks that you get used to. Oh, well, I'm going to be just Meredith Vieira again, with everything that comes with that. And I think there's also a grieving process. It's hard to leave a family, my 'Today' show family."